If you are a teacher or an academically talented student pursuing a career in special education as a nonprofit public, private or parochial preschool, elementary or secondary school teacher in Illinois, you may be eligible for the Illinois Special Education Teacher Tuition Waiver Program. This program will exempt you from paying tuition and mandatory fees at an eligible institution, for up to four calendar years. Mandatory fees are those assessed by a college to every full-time student for each term. Examples include fees for activities, facility operations, grants, health, registration, technology, transportation and others. The college determines fees that are considered mandatory.

By receiving the tuition waiver, you must teach in Illinois in the field of special education. If this teaching commitment is not fulfilled, the amount of benefits received converts to a loan, and you must repay the entire amount plus interest. It is recommended that you monitor your college billing statements to keep track of the amount waived, in the unlikely event the tuition waiver converts to a loan. You can estimate the loan payments by accessing the Monthly Payment Estimates Calculator on this website.

SETTW recipients, including those who are pursuing or have secured a position as a Speech-Language Pathologist, should take note that in order to fulfill the teaching requirements, their position must be that of a “teacher”, as certified by their employing school official. A “teacher” is defined as a person who provides direct classroom-type teaching or classroom-type teaching in a non-classroom setting.

Accordingly, only if a Speech-Language Pathologist’s teaching position meets the above definition, and is certified as such by the school official, would the position be considered as fulfilling the SETTW teaching requirements.

Eligibility

Meet one of the following conditions: you graduated from an approved high school; or you are scheduled to graduate from an approved high school by the end of the academic year in which the award is made and you performed in the upper half of your graduating class according to performance-based academic data provided by the high school; or you hold a valid teaching license that is not in the discipline of special education

Be enrolled, or accepted for enrollment, at one of the eligible public four-year colleges in Illinois (providing the institution offers a concentration in Special Education) as an undergraduate or graduate student seeking initial licensure in any area of special education

Be enrolled in a program of special education within 10 days after the beginning of the term for which the waiver was initially awarded

Not at any time have received cumulative Illinois Special Education Teacher Tuition Waiver benefits that equal or exceed the program maximum of four calendar years

Complete the application process by:

submitting a fully-completed Illinois Special Education Teacher Tuition Waiver Program application, which includes the Teaching Agreement/Master Promissory Note (in order to receive priority consideration for an award, the complete application must be received at ISAC on or before the March 1 immediately preceding the academic year for which the tuition waiver is requested),

being certified as meeting eligibility requirements by the college at which you will use the scholarship, and

* Once an academic year has ended, adjustments to benefits received will not be made for individuals who originally had their expenses (e.g., tuition and fees) covered using those benefits (i.e., the applicant cannot choose to "pay back" the dollar amount of benefits used in order to reinstate eligibility for the future).

In addition to eligibility requirements, applicants should also be aware of the rights and responsibilities for program recipients. To view the rights and responsibilities for this program, click on the link for the appropriate academic year:

How to Apply

To apply, you must obtain the Illinois Special Education Teacher Tuition Waiver (SETTW) Application/Teaching Agreement/Master Promissory Note (the application) by clicking here, or by requesting it from ISAC, eligible institutions or offices of Regional Superintendents of Education in Illinois, or state legislative and federal congressional offices. Submit your complete application to ISAC's Deerfield office postmarked on or before March 1 immediately preceding the initial academic year for which you are requesting the tuition waiver, in order to receive priority consideration. Applications postmarked after that date will be given consideration for the award if, after the initial round of awarding, all 250 available tuition waivers have not been awarded. Once you're awarded the tuition waiver, you do not need to reapply for consideration for additional years. If you are eligible for the Illinois Special Education Teacher Tuition Waiver, you will receive a notice of eligibility by July 1. If you applied, but were not selected to receive the waiver, you may reapply in subsequent years.

When a new Illinois SETTW recipient is named, the college must provide ISAC with verification of the student's enrollment and program eligibility. The college is also asked to verify the recipient's enrollment and continued eligibility status for each academic year that the tuition waiver is renewed.

Changes to Application Data

Only one Illinois Special Education Teacher Tuition Waiver (SETTW) Application/Teaching Agreement/Master Promissory Note (the application) may be submitted per academic year. Consequently, if you need to change your response(s) to any item(s) and/or update any information after the application has been submitted, you will need to provide the information to ISAC. Examples of items that may need to be updated include demographic information (i.e., name, address, telephone number, etc.), your college of record and the impacted terms (full year, fall, spring or summer). These changes can be submitted to ISAC using one of the below methods, but cannot be done over the telephone.

The request must include the last four digits of your Social Security number (for identification purposes) and clearly state what change(s) need to be made. These changes will not affect the application “received date”. In order to allow adequate processing time and prevent a loss of benefits, changes to your college of record should to be reported prior to the beginning of the applicable term(s).

Details

ISAC annually awards 250 tuition waivers.

A maximum of 40 tuition waivers is awarded to qualified applicants who hold valid teaching licenses that are not in the discipline of special education. If more than 40 applicants qualify under these provisions, a lottery is used to select 40 recipients.

A maximum of 105 tuition waivers is awarded to qualified applicants who have graduated from an approved high school prior to the academic year in which the award is made. If more than 105 applicants qualify under these provisions, a lottery is used to select 105 recipients.

A minimum of 105 tuition waivers is awarded to qualified applicants scheduled to graduate from an approved high school in the academic year in which the award is made and who perform in the upper half of their class according to performance-based academic data provided by the high school at the end of the sixth semester. Recipients for this group are selected from among qualified applicants based on the highest ACT or SAT test scores from the appropriate time period. Any of the 145 tuition waivers not awarded under the provisions outlined in the two preceding bullets are awarded to this group.

Processing Updates

Note that ISAC routinely updates this section as new information becomes available. Be sure to check back periodically for the current processing status.

For the 2019-20 Academic Year

(last updated on May 14, 2018):

Please note: the Illinois Special Education Teacher Tuition Waiver is a program created by an Act of the Illinois General Assembly. Further action by the legislature could make changes to the program that affect the future availability of this benefit. Be sure to regularly visit this page for the latest updates regarding this program.

It is anticipated that the application for the 2019-20 Illinois SETTW Program will be available at this website in mid-December of 2018.

For the 2018-19 Academic Year

(last updated on June 7, 2018):

Please note: the Illinois Special Education Teacher Tuition Waiver is a program created by an Act of the Illinois General Assembly. Further action by the legislature could make changes to the program that affect the future availability of this benefit. Be sure to regularly visit this page for the latest updates regarding this program.

2018-19 tuition waivers have been awarded in accordance with ISAC Administrative Rules, with priority consideration given to those complete applications postmarked on or before the priority application consideration date of March 1, 2018.

The process from this point forward for all complete applications is as follows:

ISAC obtains verification of enrollment and program eligibility from the college of each qualified applicant selected to receive a tuition waiver. In addition, the qualified applicant is responsible for providing a copy of the Notice of Eligibility to the college.

Additional 2018-19 recipients will only be chosen if students decline the award or are determined ineligible through the college certification process. Should this occur, ISAC will select recipients from the existing qualified pool of applicants who were not previously awarded.

If you transfer to one of the other eligible colleges, you must maintain continuous enrollment and notify ISAC of the transfer prior to the beginning of the applicable term. If you do not do so, your continued eligibility for the waiver may be jeopardized.